It is no exaggeration to say that the social well-being of the community is threatened.  The habits of years are broken up; sad to say, the middle-aged will suffer unrelieved, but the young can be incited to grapple with the situation and hew out for themselves a way through.

Certain elements in the problem will be touched upon in the following pages as a result of much going to and fro in the “most favored land on earth.”  Certain questions will be raised as to what constitutes a home and a shelter for the family in the twentieth-century sense of both family and shelter.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE CONSIDERED AS A MEASURE OF SOCIAL STANDING.

  It is not what we lack, but what we see others have,
  that makes us discontented.

There has been noted in every age a tendency to measure social preeminence by the size and magnificence of the family abode.  Mediaeval castles, Venetian palaces, colonial mansions, all represented a form of social importance, what Veblen has called conspicuous waste.  This was largely shown in maintaining a large retinue and in giving lavish entertainments.  The so-called patronage of the arts—­furnishings, fabrics, pictures, statues, valued to this day—­came under the same head of rivalry in expenditure.

In America a similar aspiration results in immense establishments far beyond the needs of the immediate family.  But, unlike society in the middle ages, social aspiration does not stop short at a well-defined line.  In the modern state each level reaches up toward the next higher and, failing to balance itself, drops into the abyss which never fills.

There is no contented layer of humanity to equalize the pressure; heads and hands are thrust up through from below at every point.  Democracy has taken possession of the age and must be reckoned with on all sides.

At first sight sumptuous housing might seem to be the least objectionable form of conspicuous waste.  Safer than rich food, less wasteful than gorgeous clothing, but, as Veblen truly says, “through discrimination in favor of visible consumption it has come about that the domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby.  As a consequence people habitually screen their private life from observation.”  This is from a different motive than the instinct of privacy, of personal withdrawal for rest and quiet.  This shabby private life is why true hospitality is disappearing.  The chance guest is no longer welcome to the family table; we are ashamed of our daily routine, or we have an idea that our fare is not worthy of being shared.  Whatever it is, unconscious as it often is, it is a canker in the family life of to-day.  It leads to selfishness, to a laxness in home manners very demoralizing.  It is doubtless one of the great factors in the distinct deterioration of children’s public manners.

Because the house is held to be the visible evidence of social standing, because its location, style of architecture, fittings and furniture may be made to proclaim the pretensions of its inhabitants, it is often dishonest and one of the sources of the prevalent untruth in other things, since dishonesty in housing has been not infrequently one of the first signs of dishonesty in business.  To move to a less fashionable quarter is to confess financial stress at once.